Gandhi and the Inner Voice

Though [Gandhi] drew upon the language of modern anti-imperialism, he professed no faith in constitutional democracy, Communism, industrialization, or other forms of self-strengthening embraced by Indian and Asian anti-imperialists. He preferred, as his exasperated and articulate assassin put it, such “old superstitious beliefs” as the “power of the soul, the inner voice, the fast, the prayer and the purity of the mind.”

In 1976, more than a quarter century after Gandhi’s assassination, Ved Mehta wrote a three-part Profile titled “Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles.” Mehta travelled to India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, England, and Japan talking to people who had known and worked with Gandhi. From these interviews, he assembled a composite portrait of Gandhi’s life, career, and influence. In the second part of the Profile, Mehta describes the development of satyagraha—Gandhi’s notion of political activism based upon moral persuasion—and its reliance on “the inner voice”:

In 1906, the Transvaal government introduced a new piece of anti-Indian legislation in the local legislature: the Asiatic Registration Bill … which was designed both to prevent Indians who had left the Transvaal during the Boer War from returning and to prevent any future Indian immigration….

Under Gandhi’s leadership, the Indians living in the Transvaal decided to oppose the bill. They gathered in huge numbers in the old Empire Theatre in Johannesburg to work out a plan of action. During discussion of a resolution calling on Indians to resist the bill in the event that it became law, regardless of the penalties, one speaker passionately declared that, as God was his witness, he, for one, would never submit to registration. Gandhi was immediately struck by the speaker’s invocation of God, and told the meeting that anyone who voted for the resolution by invoking God as his witness would in fact be making a solemn pledge, from which there could be no going back. “Resolutions of this nature cannot be passed by a majority vote,” he said. “This pledge must not be taken with a view to producing an effect on outsiders…. Everyone must only search his own heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has the requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself and then only will his pledge bear fruit.” All those assembled in the Empire Theatre stood up and declared en masse, with right hands raised, as God was their witness, they would never submit to registration. What had started out as a struggle for political rights was turning into a struggle for individual salvation.

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